


Unexpected Blessings

by theramblinrose



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Can be read alone, Caryl, F/M, based on northern stars, caryl fanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26802664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theramblinrose/pseuds/theramblinrose
Summary: Caryl, One shot.  Based on the Northern Stars universe, but can be read alone.  Life after the prison.  It was easy to believe that there was only heartache to be found in this world, but there were still blessings to be had.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Carol Peletier
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Unexpected Blessings

AN: Originally, I had this work in a collection that was supposed to be for one shots. It has come to my attention, though, that nobody really realized that or read that. So I’m breaking them up and deleting the grouped work.

This was done in response to a request for something of a “change” in Northern Stars. However, the change proposed would pretty much require simply rewriting the story instead of changing a scene/adding a scene/or giving more information. 

This could be considered, however you want to think of it, as either an alternate ending to Northern Stars or even an epilogue of sorts. 

The original story did not go the way that I intended. This is a bit more along the (many) lines I had in mind.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! 

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

“What are you doing?!” Daryl barked at Melodye. “Make it stop.” 

She laughed at him. Her laughter wasn’t what he was trying for. What he wanted was the sad and pathetic—and very loud—howling to come to an end. 

He leaned over her, watching her, doing his “job,” of being close by until she asked him for something, while she gently washed off the fresh, red-skinned baby boy that had been in the world no more than an hour. 

And Daryl was anxious to get his hands back on baby—he’d only had him for a moment—just long enough to check him over and double count fingers and toes for Carol who kept asking him, essentially, if he was sure that he could count all the way to ten. 

He’d named him Callum and Cayden hadn’t even met him yet. He was so new that really nobody had met him yet. Alice had the most time with him—since when he was born he didn’t seem too anxious to draw his first breaths, but now he wasn’t anxious to stop sucking them in and showing everyone that the lungs she’d worried over were working just fine.

“Get me the towel, Daryl,” Melodye said. 

He offered her the so-called “towel” that she asked for, though it was actually a blanket being used as a towel so that it wouldn’t scratch the baby’s skin at all. He watched as she quickly wrapped the tiny thing up in the towel, hushing his cries a little, and patted it to soak the water up that way rather than scrubbing it off. 

“Well?” She asked, offering the baby out to him like a prize.

“What’cha want me to do?” Daryl asked, not sure if this ritual was actually done yet or not. It was similar to what had happened when she’d pulled him—what seemed like forever and a day ago—to the washroom of the prison to clean Cayden up, but he couldn’t remember all the steps that were involved.

“For now? Take him to Mama,” Melodye said. “Get him a meal. I’ll get his diaper and clothes and bring it to her. She’ll want to dress him first.” 

The crying had slowed some, but it hadn’t come to a complete stop. Daryl accepted the almost weightless bundle and hugged the boy to his chest, and Callum let out another pathetic round of the wails so that Daryl bounced him gently to calm them. 

“There’s no sense in that,” he said softly to the baby. “You don’t got no manners already. Someone gives you a good bath—cleans you up all nice and shiny so everyone can look at you—and you just scream at ‘em.”

Talking seemed to calm the baby because, though he kept scrunching his face up like he might launch into crying again, he didn’t actually do it. He was considering it, but he wasn’t dedicated to it. 

Daryl smiled at the red-faced, angry, wrinkled boy. 

They’d given it up. There wouldn’t be any more for them. Cayden was their one and only—the last one? The one that had never come to be anything more than something they vaguely knew about? They’d taken it to be proof that there were simply no more babies to be born to them.

And, sadly enough, even when Carol had discovered that she was expecting Callum they’d almost written him off. He was something they would have, temporarily, but they would probably never know him. She’d hold him, for just a little while, in a place tucked deep inside her where they’d only know he was there—they’d only feel he was there.

But then? She’d held him a little longer than they expected…and a little longer…and then, finally, in the still dark hours of the morning she’d woken Daryl to say that she was done holding him.

It was time for someone else to have a go at it.

Even then, Daryl hadn’t really believed that it would be real. So, when there had been those few moments—Carol’s concern and the sound of her voice burned into his mind alongside the vision of Alice trying to make the baby breathe—of doubt? Daryl had started to make himself understand, once more, that they weren’t right to ask for this again. They weren’t right to be greedy when they had Cayden already.

Yet now, here he was, holding the bundle in his arms and he couldn’t only barely remember why they were concerned about the baby in the first place. He looked perfect. 

And as his little eyelids sagged a little, Callum wriggled ever so slightly in Daryl’s arms and raised his alarms once more, prompting Daryl to make the trip into the bedroom where he found Michonne tucking blankets and sheets around Carol who was propped against pillows in the bed. Everything in there, it looked, had already been changed in his absence.

“Al?” Daryl asked Michonne as he crossed the floor toward the bed.

“Gone to get some things from the clinic,” Michonne said. “Something to help Carol out a bit. She said she’ll bring Cayden.” 

Daryl hummed at her and stopped his steps for a moment when she reached a hand out and caught him. He gave her a second to admire the baby that he carried in his arms, since everyone in the community seemed to regard the baby as “theirs” in some way, and he smiled in Carol’s direction.

Her face said clearly that she was tired, exhausted even, and that she wasn’t entirely free of pain as of yet. It wore on her face, around her eyes. But there was something else there as well—and it was a happiness that looked beautiful on her. She would allow them all to admire Callum, to appreciate “her work” in having made the baby boy, but she was also anxious to have him in her arms for more than the few moments that she’d spent with him right after he’d let out his first cries.

“He’s just beautiful,” Michonne declared, smiling at Daryl and then passing the comment to Carol as well. Daryl wasn’t sure how to respond to it, because it seemed like such an obvious statement, but Carol thanked Michonne for it. “I’ll tell Alice to hurry up,” Michonne said, before she turned and squeezed Carol’s hand before slipping out of the room.

Callum whined again, wriggling slightly once more in his blanket, and Carol reached her arms out silently requesting the baby for inspection and feeding. Daryl passed him over, somewhat reluctantly, and sat on the edge of the bed beside her while she unwrapped the baby and took a quick moment to survey his body.

“He’s got all his parts,” Daryl said. 

Carol smiled. 

“Just making sure,” she said.

“I checked twice,” Daryl said. “Mel checked. Then I was checkin’ again while she was checkin’ to make sure nothin’ fell off. Trust me. Every one of ‘em…they there.” 

Carol hummed.

“But I’ll still check to be sure,” she said, her voice carrying the fatigue that showed on her face. 

Daryl moved his hand and rubbed the lump that, under the cover, he knew to be her leg.

“What about you?” He asked.

She was already making cooing noises at the baby and focusing on getting him to accept a breast that he wasn’t entirely sure was something he wanted yet. She didn’t hear Daryl. She had more important things—more urgent things—to worry about than herself at the moment. 

He squeezed the leg his hand rested on gently, rubbed his hand over it, and squeezed again. The methodical repetition of such a touch was soothing to him, though he didn’t think until afterwards if it really did anything for her or not. 

“What about you?” He asked, when he heard her satisfied sigh and could tell that she’d finally introduced their newest addition to the joys of nourishment. 

“What?” She asked.

Daryl chuckled.

“Are. You. OK?” He asked, stressing out every word.

She smiled, despite the tired look in her eyes. 

“I’m wonderful,” she said. And Daryl had to believe it because she said it with absolute sincerity. 

“You done good,” Daryl said. “Thank you,” he offered. 

He felt strange thanking her for Callum—he thanked her regularly for Cayden too. He didn’t know if it was common practice or not, since he really never heard anyone else thank their wives for their children—but then he didn’t presume to know what they did in private. Still he felt compelled to do it. He felt like it was right. He needed to thank her.

Because he thanked her for all of it. He thanked her for the carrying them—the struggles that he saw her go through as she asked her body to accommodate this growing child. He thanked her for delivering them—something he had to admit that, if they asked him to do it, he wasn’t sure whether or not they’d have any children. But he also thanked her simply for what she made his life. 

In her own simple way, she made his life everything he could ever want it to be. She made it everything he’d ever wanted and everything he’d never even dreamed he might want, all at once. 

So he thanked her, and he thanked her often. He didn’t often have other words for her—because poetry wasn’t something he found he was very good at since he’d attempted the one romantical poem for her and she’d laughed at him for rhyming love with dove three different times, none of which made sense, because he couldn’t find another word that sounded the same—but he did thank her.

“Thank you,” she echoed back. 

She puckered at him so that he slid gently down the side of the bed and leaned over her and the baby enough to softly bring their lips together, wanting to be mindful not to squish their son.

“Hey! Stop it right now!” Alice commanded, coming in the bedroom unannounced as though she owned the place. “Tell them, Cayden. Say stop it right now!” 

“You ‘top it now!” Cayden boomed out. 

Daryl laughed to himself and glanced to see her carrying the boy on her hip, a bag slung over one shoulder. 

“That’s how we got these two in the first place,” Alice said, muttering to herself as much as talking to them. “And we don’t need another one right now. You’re off duty for at least six weeks. So you can just—"

But she didn’t finish. She couldn’t keep a straight face over her pretended annoyance at bursting in on a kiss and she didn’t seem to be able to get through her fake speech about how kissing lead to all the evils of the world.

“We let you deliver our kids an’ you don’t even got a damn clue where babies come from,” Daryl responded back, shaking his head.

“I know how they get out,” Alice commented. “That’s about all I need to know.” 

She deposited Cayden’s feet on the floor and he came running at Daryl so Daryl picked him up. He squealed in delight and Daryl shushed him.

“Not quite so loud, OK? We want’cha lil’ brother to be used to the noise, but we don’t wanna scare him to death right off, OK?” Daryl said. 

Cayden was wide eyed and excited. His open mouthed, toothy grin, ran all the way across his face in delight that his long awaited brother was finally here. Daryl couldn’t recall when he’d seen him so happy. And he couldn’t help but laugh to himself to think that he’d remind of this initial happiness in the years to come when he bickered and complained because Callum took some toy or another or wanted something that he had.

Alice walked around Daryl a moment and offered Carol some pills and a bottle of water that she’d pulled out of the bag she was carrying. Carol took them and swallowed them immediately without question or complaint. 

“I’m going to leave you guys alone for a bit,” Alice said. “But when you’re done and he’s done? Just—come get me? No rush and nothing urgent. Just want to check back over things. OK?” 

Carol gave her a nod and a thanks and Alice quickly brushed a fingertip over the baby’s cheek before she tousled Cayden’s hair and twisted Daryl’s ear on her way back around them to escape the room.

Daryl leaned Cayden close enough that he could see the baby that was caught in the difficult land that every child must face between food and sleep.

“Well,” Daryl said. “What’cha think a’ Callum? Your lil’ brother?” 

Cayden stared at him, stretched out a hand, and Carol caught his hand and guided it to the baby’s face so that he could gently stroke the soft skin there. As soon as he did, though, Cayden snatched his hand back and looked at Daryl, wide eyed, like he hadn’t expected the baby to be an actual material human being.

“Him’s so big!” Cayden declared.

Daryl bit his lip. 

“Yeah?” He asked. “In comparison to what?” 

Cayden looked at Carol. 

“What’s he bigger than?” Carol asked, restructuring Daryl’s question.

“A squirrel!” Cayden declared.

“He’s bigger’n a squirrel, you right,” Daryl said. 

“A bunny!” Cayden said.

“Bigger’n some bunnies,” Daryl said. 

Cayden looked at him, his nose scrunching slightly like Carol’s did when she amused herself with some thought that she found at least a little “at risk” of not being as hilarious to everyone else as it was to her. 

“A piggy…” Cayden declared, but with less enthusiasm because he dissolved into laughter at his own joke.

“Now you’re just being silly,” Daryl said. 

Cayden laughed at his joke a moment longer, squished Daryl’s face between his hands to further amuse himself, and then he watched a moment as the baby that Carol had just finished burping started to doze a little in her arms. 

“I’ll get you a diaper’n clothes,” Daryl said. “Mel was s’posed to bring ‘em.” 

Carol smiled at him.

“They’re just trying to give us a little time,” she said. “But—I think you’re right. He’ll need something soon. Something really soft?” 

Daryl nodded.

“Mama…” Cayden declared, stretching his arms out toward Carol. He was suddenly deciding that he’d had enough of Daryl, and maybe that he’d had enough of this strange new baby having his mother’s attention.

Daryl stood up, determined to go and get what Carol needed, and lifted Cayden over her, depositing him on the bed on the other side of her so that there was no risk he’d fall off.

“You lay down there,” Daryl said. “Be still like. Quiet like you huntin’ deers.” 

Cayden’s eyes went wide and he put his finger up to his mouth and blew at it. Daryl nodded and repeated the “hushing” gesture. 

“Snuggle in with me?” Carol said to Cayden. “We’ll take a little nap with Callum?” 

Cayden didn’t need more prompting to snuggle right in next to his mother. 

“I’m gonna get that stuff,” Daryl said, leaning quickly to capture Carol’s lips once more. 

“You don’t mind?” She asked. 

Daryl chuckled to himself. Like after all she’d done, he’d mind going to get a few things for the baby. He shook his head and looked over the sight of them—Carol with Callum new to the world and sleeping already in her arms. Cayden snuggled in next to her, his finger in his mouth, watching Daryl with big blue eyes whose eyelids sagged a little just at the mention of a nap. 

“Nah,” Daryl said. “I got it too good to mind somethin’ little.” 

Carol puckered at him again, just a quick air kiss sent in his direction, and he headed out of the room to see what was taking Melodye and if she’d gathered things together for him at least. 

But even if she hadn’t, he meant what he said. He used to get fussed—many more times than he cared to admit—over little annoyances in his life. But now? He knew he had it too good for such foolishness, and he hoped he always remembered that. 

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

AN: As always, if you have any requests or anything you’d like to see, drop me a private message and I’ll see what I can do about filling your request! I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
